NEW ALBANY – The little kid in the Romeo Langford jersey couldn’t help himself. Romeo had just announced his commitment to play basketball for the Indiana Hoosiers, and more than 2,500 people at the New Albany High gym were cheering and a few of them were sobbing and even the New Albany coach, Jim Shannon, was rubbing tears from his eyes.

And all this emotion and excitement, it's just too much for the little kid. His name is Alton Niemeier. He’s 6 years old, the son of the principal at Slate Run Elementary a few miles up the road, and this is Romeo we’re talking about here. Around the state, around the country, he’s a name, a concept, a star. Around New Albany? He’s Romeo, nicest guy in the world, signs every autograph and poses for every picture and does it all with that shy smile.

Romeo is standing on the stage, wearing the IU hat he had pulled from the podium, flanked by hats from his other two finalists – Kansas and Vanderbilt – and the crowd is erupting and Romeo is waiting for the noise to stop and it isn't stopping and this kid, this little boy named Alton, he breaks free from his family and sprints out of the crowd, onto the court and up to the stage. Romeo remembers Alton, recognizes him, even knows his name because that’s the kind of young man Romeo is, and he sees Alton coming and he breaks into a huge smile and leans down from the stage, way down, to slap palms.

That’s how it ends, and that’s how it begins: The best high school basketball player our basketball state has produced in decades will stay home for college. He will go to IU. His high school coach is crying and his mom is clapping and Alton is dancing back to his family, beaming, because that’s his buddy up on the stage. That’s Romeo.

The red IU sash was in his jacket pocket, but Romeo Langford’s father kept it hidden. Like everything else about Romeo’s college decision, Tim Langford kept this close to the vest.

In an era where there are no secrets anymore, where ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski literally tweets out NBA draft picks two or three selections before they are announced, the Langford family kept us in the dark. And by us, I mean: everybody. Even Langford’s high school coach, Jim Shannon, didn’t find out until a few minutes before the ceremony.

Coaches of the colleges involved at the end always know before the announcement, but not this time. Shortly before the ceremony began, friends of mine on two of the three coaching staffs involved didn’t know which way Romeo would go.

No, it’s not. The ceremony was set to begin at 7 p.m. Doors opened to the public at 6. The line began forming at 2:36 p.m., when Melissa Bostock set up a chair at the gym door. Bostock is a graduate of New Albany High, class of 1995, but she’s here for dual purposes. She’s wearing an IU hat and an IU shirt, just like almost everyone else in a line that goes down the steps and across the school’s front lawn, makes a right turn on Vincennes Street and then another right on McCaffry Drive, where it disappears in the distance under a bright afternoon sun.

It’s a sea of red here – New Albany red, IU red – and across the lawn and down Vincennes and around the corner onto McCaffry, way down McCaffry, is a young man named Ben Smith. He’s 18, a junior at Scottsburg High School about 30 miles away, where the rival crowd lined up for an hour the last time New Albany played there to get Romeo’s autograph.

“It’s that way everywhere we go,” Jim Shannon is telling me, himself an Anderson kid and a longtime IU fan dating to the days of Bob Knight, which is why this was so emotional for him as well. “But at Scottsburg it was longer than usual. I remember that.”

And this kid Ben Smith, he’s in line on Monday. Went to high school, then caught a ride to New Albany to watch Romeo pick – he hoped – his beloved Hoosiers. Smith couldn’t drive himself, you understand. He’s been a quadriplegic since he was 14 months old, when that car seat saved his life but couldn’t save his spinal cord during a crash. It couldn’t be easy for him to get here, I'm suggesting.

“Had to come,” Ben’s telling me. “For Romeo, and for IU.”

Back at the front of the line, past all those folks in red, I’m asking Bostock if she’s seen anyone wearing Kansas or Vanderbilt colors. She makes a face and wishes a pitiable fate upon anyone who would dare.

“If someone like that tries to show up here," she sneers, "they can go to Floyd Central. There’s nothing here for you.”

New Albany Bulldogs Romeo Langford (1) defends Warren Central Warriors David Bell (22) in the first half of their IHSAA Boys 4A Semi-State basketball game at the Lloyd E.Scott Gym in Seymour IN., on Saturday, March 16, 2018. Matt Kryger/IndyStar

Mar 28, 2018; Atlanta, GA, USA; McDonalds High School All American East forward Romeo Langford (22) dunks during the McDonalds High School All American Game at Philips Arena. Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Mar 28, 2018; Atlanta, GA, USA; McDonalds High School All American East forward Romeo Langford (22) takes a shot during the McDonalds High School All American Game at Philips Arena. Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

New Albany High School senior Romeo Langford (1) puts up a shot during the first half a varsity basketball game at Southport High School, Saturday, December 9, 2017. Southport hosted the Tip-Off Classic tournament through the weekend. Doug McSchooler/for IndyStar

Romeo Langford poses for a photo and signs autographs prior to New Albany?s game in Bloomington on Saturday.
Dakota Crawford/IndyStar
Romeo Langford poses for a photo and signs autographs prior to New Albany's game in Bloomington on Saturday. Dakota Crawford / IndyStar

The New Albany Bulldogs celebrates winning the IHSAA 4A Boys Basketball State Final game Saturday, Mar 26, 2016, evening at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The New Albany Bulldogs defeated the McCutcheon Mavericks 62-59. Matt Kryger/IndyStar

New Albany Bulldogs Romeo Langford (1) is almost triple-teamed but still drives to the backer in the second half of the IHSAA 4A Boys Basketball State Final game Saturday, Mar 26, 2016, evening at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The New Albany Bulldogs defeated the McCutcheon Mavericks 62-59. Matt Kryger/IndyStar

IndyStar Mr. Basketball presented by the Indiana Pacers, Romeo Langford, of New Albany, poses for a photo during the IndyStar Sports Awards at Butler's Clowes Memorial Hall on Sunday, April 29, 2018. Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar

Well, Romeo’s here. And Kansas and Vanderbilt are, in fact, finalists. But it doesn’t seem like the time to mention that to Bostock, and the longer this thing drags out, the more apparent it seems that Romeo will not – was never going to – invite the state to his college announcement and then put on anything but an IU hat. An announcement of Kansas or Vanderbilt, the ceremonial wearing of either of those enemy hats, would have punctured the mood inside this gym like a pin to a balloon.

And poor Alton Niemeier in the miniature No. 1 Romeo Langford jersey. It would have broken his heart.

* * *

After the announcement, after the crowd cheers and the band plays and the media asks questions, Romeo walks out of the gym and into the rest of his life. Same as it ever was: A chair, a table and a line of people waiting for his autograph.

The line starts near the lunch room and runs the length of the hallway. New Albany is a Class 4A school – these are long hallways – and the line turns the corner and runs the length of another hallway. I’m walking the two hallways, reminded of the scene I saw last month at the Seymour regional when thousands of strangers waited for a moment of a teenager’s time, and Romeo gave it to them with a shy smile, when I see something I’ve never seen before:

A girl, a senior at rival Floyd Central, has come here to ask a favor of Romeo. She turns on her cell phone’s video recorder, has a friend hold it, and asks Romeo to say a few words. He asks her to repeat those words. She does. One more time, he says. She repeats it, and now Romeo understands his role here. He smiles. Sure, he’ll say those words. The girl, whose name is Faith, hops over to Romeo’s side of the table and sidles alongside him as her friend holds the camera.

Romeo looks into it and says his line: “Matthew,” he says to a boy he’s never met, “you should go out with Faith.”

Faith – the spiritual kind – was the topic about a half-hour earlier, when the Langford family minister, Mike Ward from New Birth Church in Louisville, spoke to the crowd. The ceremony is about 15 minutes old, with remarks from the New Albany coach (Jim Shannon) and athletic director (Don Unruh), and Romeo is unruffled. He’s always unruffled, his face betraying no emotion, not even when Shannon announces that Romeo’s No. 1 will never again be worn at New Albany, but will be retired and displayed in the gym to tell an important chapter of this school’s story.

Romeo doesn’t react. Doesn’t even blink. Afterward I’m asking Shannon: You must have told Romeo beforehand, right? Because he didn’t react at all.

And Shannon says: “Nope. He didn’t know until I said it up there, and that’s why he’ll be a great pro: You can’t get under his skin. You can’t figure out what he’s thinking, ever. You can’t get a reaction out of Romeo.”

Well, the pastor gets a reaction out of Romeo. Mike Ward is quoting from Proverbs and also Ecclesiastes, saying: “There’s a time to dance, and I believe this is one of those times. It’s time to celebrate.”

And sitting in a chair behind him, listening to the familiar cadence of his family pastor, Romeo is nodding and smiling. Indeed, it’s time to celebrate, and in a minute he will be standing where Mike Ward is standing, and Romeo will be selecting the IU hat and putting it on and listening to the crowd and smacking palms with little Alton.

And then there will be a pause on stage as TV cameras jockey for position below, and Romeo uses the brief break to look up at one of the two giant projector screens that have been displaying the ceremony to the crowd. He’s looking at the ballcap, considers removing it, and then makes a small adjustment. Now he decides: The red IU hat looks good on his head.